


Snapshots

by neveralarch



Series: Banners from the Turrets [24]
Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One)
Genre: M/M, Sexual Roleplay, Sticky Sexual Interfacing, amateur porn, incredibly messy relationships, the king of bad asexual representation is BACK and he is GONNA be happy, wedding-night kink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-06
Updated: 2020-10-06
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:41:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26863054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neveralarch/pseuds/neveralarch
Summary: Aglet gets lucky, and Pharma learns that he really can get what he wants. No bridges (or couches) burned this time.
Relationships: Pharma/Aglet (OC)
Series: Banners from the Turrets [24]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1265390
Comments: 46
Kudos: 103





	Snapshots

**Author's Note:**

> This follows on from [Sparkbreaker](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24325519); timeline-wise, this is happening simultaneously with Operating Instructions. Thanks to everyone who's following along with this increasingly convoluted AU! And thanks especially to Dez for motivating me to keep working on this (and also writing some of it when I got stuck, haha). 
> 
> This fic contains Pharma's constellation of relationship and sex neuroses, including fantasized dub/noncon; explicit (consensual, negotiated) sex; and wedding-night roleplay. Please let me know if you need details.

"So," said Pharma, at the bar, "no luck tonight?"

Aglet's helm was still ringing from being slapped. One of the downsides of his radar dishes. "No," he said, shortly.

Pharma hummed and passed him a drink. "I don't know why you keep coming here. No good Autobot would want to be ravished, degraded, have their very energon sucked from their lines by a Decepticon. Much too rough for the likes of us."

"I’m not trying to _ravish_ ," began Aglet, but he didn't especially want to be drawn into a conversation about his sexual preferences with his boss' ex. It was bad enough that he was talking to him at all, but… Well, it wasn’t like any of the other Autobots in the bar wanted his company.

"Why do _you_ keep coming here?" asked Aglet, instead.

Pharma shrugged and swirled his cocktail. "Nothing else to do."

"You need a hobby," said Aglet, and then considered that for a moment. "Besides drinking." He hadn’t had to walk Pharma home from the bar recently, but three times had been too many for him. He didn’t like seeing Pharma that despondent, and he didn’t like that he was the only one at a bar full of Autobots who seemed to care.

But some life had flickered into Pharma's optics, and he’d put down his drink. "I do have a hobby. It's new. The counselor suggested it."

Aglet hummed noncommittally. He didn't think much of Pharma's city-mandated counselor, an Autobot who mostly worked on anger-management issues and seemed to think that any problem could be solved with enough art therapy. Pharma had shown him a few of the paintings he'd done. Aglet had worried that he was going to see a series of intimate portraits of Rung, but they were all so abstract that he couldn't actually tell what he was looking at. Lots of black and red.

Pharma produced a datapad from his subspace and turned it on. "I always liked taking pictures and sending them to people. Inferno showed me a site on the intranet that's specifically for that. See?"

It was an artfully taken picture of Pharma, smiling at something off camera. Aglet took the datapad and scrolled down, revealing more photos of Pharma—his face, his wings, his delicate medic hands. He scrolled back up to the top of the page.

"OnlyVans," he read. "What's that mean?"

"It used to be a page for wheeled shuttle enthusiasts," said Pharma. "But they opened it up to everyone last year. Look, you can pay to subscribe, I have ten subscribers."

"People are paying for photos of you?" Aglet had gotten a couple selfies from Pharma, starting right after the first time he'd walked him home. Sometimes he told Pharma he looked nice, or he sent a selfie back. He'd never considered _paying_ for it.

"People pay for all kinds of photos," said Pharma, a little evasively. He scrolled up to the search bar. "What kind of mech do you like? I bet we can find someone like that on here."

"No thanks," said Aglet. "I'm still holding out for someone I can actually touch."

“Good luck with that,” said Pharma, and picked up his drink again.

\---

(“How is Pharma?” asked First Aid, in the breakroom. “I heard you’ve been hanging out.”

“He’s fine?” Aglet tried to come up with a more specific assessment, but that was just about all he had. “I don’t know, we’re not really friends. He’s just always at the bar after I get sick of striking out.”

“Oh, does that happen a lot?” Flatline shook his head in mock-sorrow. “You ought to come to the Nemesis sometime. Find a nice big ‘Con to show you a good time.”

“Like you, you mean?” Aglet reached across the table and gave Flatline a shove. Flatline didn’t even move. “You know I’m not buying what you’re selling.”

“Okay, cuddle-bug,” said Flatline. “But if you ever want a real mech…”

“Cuddle-bug?” said First Aid. “Aglet, what’s he mean, cuddle—”

“Oh, look at that, we’re all due back on shift.” Aglet knocked his energon back and then tossed the empty cube at Flatline’s stupidly-broad chest. “Don’t worry about it, Aid. He’s just a cogsucker.”)

\---

Aglet had been chatting with Bluestreak in a corner booth for the last half hour. He was feeling _good_ , they were _clicking_. Bluestreak had so many good stories that didn't involve killing people, which was an unfortunately high bar to clear in post-war Cybertron.

"So," said Aglet, "what are your plans for the rest of your night?"

"I don't know." Bluestreak flicked his doors back coquettishly. "Why don't you tell me?"

"Well." Aglet slid his hand across the table, almost but not quite touching Bluestreak's elbow. "I was thinking maybe we could go back to my place, have some warmed energon, and then if you’re feeling good and the mood is right… Maybe we could cuddle?"

Bluestreak's doors flattened against his back. "What?"

"I'm open to basically any kind of cuddles," said Aglet, too fast but unable to slow down. He’d been so close, he could _feel_ it. "Panels open, closed, face-to-face, spooning, I do praise and validation but I'm actually pretty bad at humiliation so I wouldn't try that unless you _really_ —"

"Did Ironhide put you up to this?" demanded Bluestreak. "That scrapheap fragging _knew_ I—I'm gonna go kick his aft."

"No, I'm just," stammered Aglet, but it was too late. Bluestreak was already up and across the room, shoving Ironhide from behind so that the mech spilled his drink.

Aglet slunk back to the bar, where Pharma was playing with a datapad and completely ignoring the brewing fight.

"No luck?" asked Pharma, not looking up.

"This shouldn't be so difficult," said Aglet, yanking himself onto a stool. "When I was in the fleet, mechs would proposition me all the time! Sure, it's a niche kink, but everyone knew I was into the soft stuff. Sometimes mechs I didn't even _know_ would ask if I wanted to stroke their helms!"

Pharma tilted his head and focused his optics on Aglet. Emboldened by the attention and fragging exasperated by his complete lack of a love life, Aglet kept talking.

"Autobots are supposed to love cuddles! Hugs, and holding hands, and looking into each other's optics as you play with each other's antennae. Why does everyone keep looking at me like I'm some kind of secret organic spy?"

"I think," said Pharma, carefully, "that the Autobots who talk to you are looking for... rough Decepticon handling. That's probably why Bluestreak thought you were making fun of him."

Aglet groaned and lowered his helm to the bar. It was sticky.

"Anyway," continued Pharma, "Autobots don't usually proposition each other so directly. You have to be _subtle_ —get to know their hobbies, their friends, their work schedules and the routes they usually walk home—"

"What are you up to?" interrupted Aglet. He didn’t want to talk about this any more, not when Bluestreak and Ironhide were still loudly squabbling about whether he, Aglet, was either a bad joke or just a natural wimp. "More OnlyVans stuff?"

"Ye-es," said Pharma. "I have five hundred subscribers now."

Aglet shoved himself back up. Good. Topic change. Perfect. "That's really impressive. People must really like your photos. Can I see?"

Pharma hesitated.

"Oh, I have to pay now?" teased Aglet. He patted the armor over his subspace. "Let me see if I have any shanix..."

Pharma's biolights flushed. "You don't have to pay." He passed Aglet the datapad.

Aglet scrolled through the photos. This set was of Pharma with some kind of gauzy overlayer, draped across his wings and trailing down his chest to frame his cockpit. Pharma's optics were dimmed, and the smirk on his lips felt like an invitation.

"You're really good at these," said Aglet. "Surgeon _and_ a model? That's just unfair."

Pharma hummed, sounding pleased, and Aglet scrolled to the next photo, which featured Pharma's spread fingers barely covering his open panel.

"Oh," said Aglet. "Huh."

"This set's only suggestive," said Pharma. "I do have some explicit photos in the other sets but I, um, I didn't know if you'd want to see that. They’re good, though. I think. If you do want to see."

Maybe another day Aglet would’ve said no. He came to Visage’s to try to pick up cute Autobots, not look at racy photos of a mech who he absolutely should not have any sexual thoughts about ever, at all. Pharma had dated Ratchet _and_ Rung, and both of those relationships had ended with property damage and restraining orders, from what Aglet had heard. Yeah, Pharma seemed lonely and harmless. That didn’t mean Aglet had to leap right into the minefield.

But Bluestreak and Ironhide had escalated to making out furiously against the wall. Aglet slid the datapad back over to Pharma. "Hit me."

The explicit set featured Pharma, of course, this time detailed like an old classical dancer. He also had two fingers knuckle-deep in his own spike-housing, his blue-painted lips half-parted as he played with himself.

Aglet had seen a lot of amateur pornography in his life. The army was full of it, for one thing. For another, Starscream liked to paste some of the more gruesome stuff into his journal when he thought Aglet was getting too complacent. But he’d never seen photos this… slick.

"No wonder you have so many subscribers," said Aglet. "The lighting in this is incredible."

Pharma beamed. "Thank you! Nobody _ever_ comments on the lighting. It was really hard to get that, especially since I had to set up the datapad to take images, and it doesn't have the same flexibility as a living camera mech. I kept having to move my lamps around."

“You need a photographer,” said Aglet.

“Hmm.” Pharma took the datapad back, looking critically at his own face. “I suppose I do…”

“Hey!” shouted Mirage, from behind the bar. “No interfacing here! Bluestreak! Open your panel and I’ll put my foot up your aft!”

Bluestreak giggled. “Promise?”

Aglet groaned and put his hands over his head. Trust him to try picking up the masochist.

\---

(The next selfie Pharma sent was of him in bed, his fingers toying with his turbines.

He looked good, so Aglet told him that. He was just being honest.

“Thanks,” said Pharma’s next message. “What do you think of the tint? Blue or pink?”)

\---

"Tell me if this is weird," said Aglet, after another unsuccessful night, "but I could take photos for you sometime."

Pharma froze with his hand on his glass, optics wide. "Really?"

Oh, pit, thought Aglet, really? No, no, it would be fine. It wasn’t like he was propositioning Pharma. He was just offering to take some pictures. For his sex blog.

“I mean, I could try,” said Aglet. “You’d have to give me some direction, but, uh. Yeah.”

"Yeah," said Pharma. He looked at Aglet for a moment longer, and then Aglet could almost _hear_ the click in his processor. "You know," purred Pharma, leaning closer, " _I've_ been known to enjoy the… soft stuff. We don't have to take any photos. We could just..." he reached out to trail a finger up Aglet's thigh, "see how we feel..."

Aglet’s interface array pinged him. He belatedly realized that even if his processor hadn’t committed to propositioning Pharma, the rest of his frame was leaning into Pharma’s touch.

Well, what was the harm? Pharma was certainly the hottest mech in the bar, all shining white wings and delicate medic hands. So what if he had a reputation for fixating on a mech and sucking them dry until they detonated in a haze of screaming and broken furniture?

Aglet gently took Pharma's hand and put it safely on the bar. "Pharma,” he said gently, steeling himself to say ‘sorry, but no.’

“Oh,” said Pharma, and it was like he was being puppeted. His face went flat, his spine straightened, and he turned back to the bar. Away from Aglet.

“Never mind,” Pharma said, and held up two fingers to the bartender. “It was stupid of me.”

“It wasn’t,” said Aglet, and then had to stop himself. Frag, his emotional core was all out of joint. What did he even _want_ from Pharma? “I mean, it’s just—I’m not comfortable doing anything without a clear layout of what we each want out of the encounter."

Pharma turned his helm back in Aglet’s direction, tilting it quizzically.

"I'm not saying no," explained Aglet. "I just want to know what you'd get out of it."

"Interfacing?" suggested Pharma, sounding not at all sure.

"Think about it," said Aglet, which was good advice for anyone. Himself especially. He got up from the bar, sending credits via commlink to pay both his and Pharma’s tabs. “Take your time. See you tomorrow?”

“Yes,” said Pharma, immediately, and then scowled. “I mean. If I don’t have anything better to do.”

\---

(“You’re useless today,” said Starscream. “Hungover?”

“No,” said Aglet, who was trying _very_ hard not to think about Pharma laid out in his berth, wings begging to be stroked. “Tell me more about this play you’re doing. Are you enjoying performing?”

Starscream perked up. “It’s fine,” he lied, but in the way where he tried to downplay his enthusiasm, rather than the way where he tried to hide his pain. “Megatron says I’m a _natural_ , he’s _so_ grateful to have me—”

Aglet listened, and took notes, and didn’t look at any of the photos he’d stored in his RAM.)

\---

"Okay," said Pharma, as soon as Aglet sat down at the bar the next night. "I want to lie together on a berth with your face pressed against my neck, while you tell me how amazing and attractive and intelligent I am. It has to be face-to-face, because I don't think you'll fit between my wings. And I don't want to interface but I _do_ want your spike out, pressurized against my thigh. It's fine if you grind on me a little, but you can't overload on my plating."

Aglet looked at the barmech. The barmech turned around, glass in hand, and studiously kept wiping it clean.

"Wow," said Aglet. "That's, uh, that's detailed."

A little of the manic energy left Pharma, leaving him deflated. "I thought you wanted a clear layout."

"Yeah, that's _great_." Aglet hadn't even had a chance to order a drink, but he was ready to go now. Frag, he could feel his spike trying to extend against his panel. It had been _way_ too long, that was all. It wasn’t a federal offense to be horny, not on the new Cybertron. It was just a hookup. "Your place or mine?"

"Mine?" suggested Pharma. "Would you still take photos, or—"

"Yes," said Aglet, carefully considering and then discarding every single one of his reasonable reservations. "Whenever you're ready."

\---

(“Which photo did you like best?” asked Pharma, in the elevator up to his apartment.

“All of them,” said Aglet, without thinking.

They rode the rest of the way up in silence, twin flushes in their biolights.)

\---

Pharma was having a good time. Or at least, he thought so. They’d taken some photos—there was an angle under Pharma’s turbines he’d been trying and failing to get, and Aglet had gotten a dozen perfect shots of them. They’d had a little energon and chatted about nothing that Pharma could really remember. And now they were lying in Pharma’s berth. This was how hooking up was supposed to go, wasn’t it? Pharma never had before. He could count the number of mechs he’d interfaced with on one hand.

Well. Two hands now, if this counted. He wasn’t sure if it did.

Aglet was tucked against Pharma’s chest, his face nuzzling Pharma’s neck cables. One of his big hands was playing idly with Pharma’s wing. And his spike, as requested, was pressurized against Pharma’s thigh.

Pharma could feel it bumping against his panel as Aglet rocked. It felt—it felt _good_ , like being _wanted_ , but it felt… incomplete.

“You’re so hot,” breathed Aglet, singing Pharma’s praises just like Pharma had asked him to. “I’m so lucky, you’re _so_ gorgeous. Surgeon, model, brilliant, beautiful…”

Pharma shivered and tilted his helm a little to expose more of his neck. Aglet’s voice dissolved into enraptured mumbling as he sucked on Pharma’s cabling.

It was perfect. Wasn’t it? Everything Pharma had asked for. He didn’t let people frag him any more, he’d promised himself. He just wanted to feel good.

Aglet’s spike slipped against Pharma’s panel again. Pharma was suddenly struck with the image of his panel opening, of Aglet pushing into Pharma’s valve. Pharma wouldn’t resist, would he? He’d been the one to invite Aglet up here. He was practically begging for it.

Aglet would probably enjoy fragging him. Maybe he’d stay the night if Pharma let him do it. Pharma would like that. It was hard for him to recharge alone—his processor shut off so much easier with another engine to listen to. Sometimes he played recordings of Ratchet or Rung’s engine, but he tried not to do that often. He was trying to let go.

It’d be so much _easier_ if Aglet just fragged him… 

“Pharma?” said Aglet. “Did you, uh. Did you mean for that to happen?”

Pharma followed Aglet’s gaze and realized his panel had flicked open. His spike was still recessed, but his valve was leaking onto his own thigh and his node was flickering a bright invitation.

“I,” he said, his processor so full that it felt like it was going to explode. “I didn’t—I mean. You can frag me. If you want?”

Aglet looked up at him and blinked. Then he slowly eased back.

“No,” said Pharma. “No, no, I meant—I want you to frag me, please. Please don’t go.”

“We said we weren’t doing that,” said Aglet, still pulling away.

“But you cuddled me so well,” whined Pharma. “Just like I knew you would. I love the way your arms feel around me, and your mouth is so clever, and your spike is so _heavy_ , you _must_ want to overload, you took all those photos, I _owe_ you an overload, and I don’t want you to go—”

“Okay, I’m—” Aglet extracted himself from Pharma’s arms despite Pharma’s best attempts to keep him. “I’m not going, I promise, I’m just—taking a quick break. To fix the problem. One sec.”

He fled. Pharma stared at the empty doorway for a full minute, then scrambled out of his berth to follow.

The door out of the apartment hadn’t been unlocked and opened. Aglet wasn’t in the living room or the kitchen. Pharma took a few deep breaths, trying and failing to calm down, and finally tracked him down to the washracks. The door was closed, but Pharma could hear a faint clanging. He pressed his audial to the door and caught a moan.

“Aglet,” he said, faintly scandalized. “Are you jerking off?”

“Yeah,” said Aglet, muffled by the door.

“ _Why_?” demanded Pharma. His panel was still open. His valve was right _there_.

“We said no interfacing,” gasped Aglet. “But I’m all turned on and you don’t want me to go, so I’m going to overload myself, clean up, and then we can cuddle some more. Maybe I can give you a backrub? Or preen your wings—I don’t really know how, but I’m a quick learner.”

Pharma sat down on the floor, leaning his side against the door. After a moment he closed his panel and put his hand over it, like he needed to reassure himself that it was safe.

“Pharma?” said Aglet, his voice roughened with static. “Do you—do you want me to stop?”

“No,” said Pharma, feeling oddly happy to be sitting on the floor, untouched but with the promises of better things to come. “Tell me more about what you want to do with my wings.”

\---

(“You’re too soft to be a Decepticon,” a minicon had said once, when he was lying in Aglet’s arms with a tarp tucked over their helms.

“It doesn’t say anywhere in _Towards Peace_ that you need to be a mean fragger with a big spike,” said Aglet, sleepily.

“Huh, I guess not,” said the minicon. “Funny how most of us are.”)

\---

Later, after Aglet had loudly overloaded in Pharma’s washracks and rinsed the evidence down the drain, after Pharma slowly walked Aglet through how to clean the debris from between his wing plates, and after Aglet told Pharma again how gorgeous and clever and accomplished he was, they laid together on the berth, Pharma’s head pillowed on Aglet’s shoulder and his hand stroking idly over Aglet’s side.

“Thank you for staying,” mumbled Pharma. He was already plugged into the berth, and his optics were so dim that they nearly disappeared into the dark of the room.

“Of course,” said Aglet, basking in the glow of _touch_ and _closeness_ and _soft_. “Thanks for inviting me. I had a great time.”

“Hmm.” Pharma slowly rubbed his cheek against Aglet’s plating, then stretched to press a kiss to Aglet’s throat. “Even though you had to get off in the washracks?”

“Yeah, don’t worry about it,” said Aglet. Primus, Pharma could be sweet when he wanted to be. “It was fine. It’s more important to stick to the boundaries we set than it is to overload in a berth.”

Pharma didn’t say anything for a while. Aglet was pretty sure he’d fallen asleep, but then he said: “I thought about you just taking me, when my panel was open. No one would blame you. I invited you here, we were in my berth, I knew you were a Decepticon. You could interface for real, you wouldn’t need to frag your own hand in the washracks. I wouldn’t mind, either. If you were making me, I wouldn’t have to pretend to enjoy it.”

All the lightness of cuddling drained out of Aglet’s processor. “Pharma,” he said, gently, “that doesn’t sound like a good thing.”

“Mmm.” Pharma snuggled a little closer. “I liked your idea better. It was nice, listening to you. Maybe sometime I could watch?”

Aglet hesitated, feeling like he’d reached the edge of a landing and was looking down a forty-story drop. He’d told himself it’d be okay if it was a one time thing. Just to take the edge off, keep his hand in. Was he going to let one hookup turn into more? Frag buddies? Friends with benefits? With Pharma?

He didn’t need to fall into berth with the first Autobot who gave him the time of day. Especially, again, with _Pharma_.

Pharma sighed, and his wings twitched. He looked so peaceful, so relaxed. No longer the jittering mech who’d asked if Aglet wanted to frag him. Aglet had smoothed that tension away with his own two hands.

Aglet had spent too long thinking, and Pharma was probably actually in recharge this time. Aglet didn’t need to answer his question. In the morning Pharma would probably have forgotten that he’d even asked.

“Sure,” said Aglet, instead. “I’d like that.”

\---

(“Here,” said Pharma’s message. “For the next time you’re in my washracks.”

It was a picture of Pharma reclining on a couch, his helm turned away, looking demure even as two of his long medic fingers spread his valve open for the viewer. His other hand was caught in the act of sensually running up his cockpit.

Aglet bit his lip.

“Can I make requests?” he asked. “It’s a little weird.”

“Nothing’s too weird,” said Pharma. He sent a picture along with the message, a little shelf of interface toys. Dildos, charge simulators, a pair of stasis cuffs.

Carefully, hesitantly, Aglet described what he wanted. “It’s ok if you don’t want to,” he assured Pharma, when he was done. “I love your photos already.”

Pharma didn’t respond, but twenty minutes later Aglet got a photo of Pharma, lying in berth with a soft cover over his wings, his optics dim as he squeezed a pillow against his chest.

Aglet saved it to his long-term memory, with a special tag to make it easier to retrieve.)

\---

They’d sat down in the grand sunshiny plaza outside the Tetrahex Opera House, across from the much smaller and more modern paint and polish outlet. And the wing shop, which was having a sale on ailerons. 

Pharma was buffing down the wear and tear on his elegant fingers, covering the top of the sun-table with a fine powder. Forged medics had overactive growth nanites on their fingers and hands, which Aglet didn’t envy—he guessed you needed it when you were using your fingers on all kinds of coils and springs and oil pans all day, most days of the week, but the upkeep seemed like a lot of work.

Unless you were like Ratchet, apparently, if Pharma was telling the truth about Ratchet working so constantly that the nanite activity was just barely enough to keep him in a normal amount of fingertip.

“You won’t believe the mod I was asked to install today,” Pharma was saying, as he turned his hand around in the sunlight to admire the slight point he’d just filed his fingertip into. 

“Uhhh, throat node transplant,” Aglet guessed. 

Pharma did a little fake gasp. “ _Aglet_ ,” he said. “How _risque_ of you.”

Moving the anterior node from the interface array into the back of the throat was supposed to be _possible_ , Aglet knew, but in practice there was too much wiring and rewiring of the sensory net for it to be a popular surgery. You had to really want it. And you had to pay for the pleasure out of your own pocket.

“Okay okay,” Aglet said, palms up, “I’m sure you don’t actually do those.”

Pharma’s fingers glittered only half as brightly as his narrowed optics. “ _Well_ ,” he said, “I have done… _one_.” 

“On who?” Aglet demanded, “You have to tell me who, I have to know who’s walking around surgically modified for sucking spike.”

“Ohhh, a certain Autobot who shall not be named.” Pharma said. “Shall we say, a particularly _great_ one…”

“No way,” Aglet said. “ _No way_.”

“What? I haven’t told you anything,” Pharma said, very innocently. “And if I had, it certainly wouldn’t go any further than this table, would it?”

“No,” Aglet said. “No, of course not.” His spark gave a little burst of heat in the middle of his chest when Pharma favored him with a roguish grin. 

“But no,” Pharma finished, catching back up with his anecdote of the day, “it was a _tow_ bolt. For being _dragged about_ with. I can’t even imagine what kind of trouble a bot like that gets up to.”

“Must be pretty ugly, isn’t it?” Aglet said. “Like a wart or something. Not exactly a cosmetic improvement.”

“I do my best to make anything look good,” said Pharma, and then laughed. Snickered, almost. “Well, some things are beyond even me.” 

“Most mechs don’t get the benefit of Pharma-level work. Like that guy.” Aglet nodded towards a passing cone-head, who he was pretty sure was either Ramjet or Dirge. He could never tell them apart for sure. “Who did his shoulders? They look like some gunk he scraped out of a smelter. I hope he didn’t _ask_ for them to look like that.”

“Mm,” Pharma said, following the seeker with his eyes, “probably Fixit. He’s fine for a patch job, I suppose, but try getting him to make anything _remotely_ aesthetic. Dreadful. An absolute vulgarian.”

“I was thinking Quickslinger,” Aglet said. “She sure does her slinging… quick.”

“You don’t know the half of it,” Pharma said, leaning in, elbows up on the table top. “When we were working in Iacon I had her for an assistant, half a vorn, and she was _hopeless_. Get me a vent cover, I would say. And she’d come back with some sloppy, pitted, silver monstrosity. The patient is _blue_ , Quickslinger. We have a _nauseating_ amount of blue paint. Can’t you at least try to match the patient?” 

Aglet leaned into the conversation too, mirroring Pharma’s pose. It was nice to shoot the breeze with another medic, even if Aglet only barely qualified as medical by most people’s estimates. Pharma was surprisingly gracious about treating him as a colleague. Pharma never made him feel like a jumped up little telecom pretending to be a medic, even though by all rights he could do. Pharma had an actual degree and everything.

But no, he was looking at Aglet without condescension, waiting to hear what Aglet would say next.

“Quickslinger clearly doesn’t care about paint matching,” Aglet said. “I mean, just look at her. Lavender and _crimson_? What? Is there a color wheel I can introduce you to?”

Pharma snorted. “It would be one thing if she were a Decepticon, but—”

And then he stopped, and frowned, and pressed the knuckles of his closed fist to his mouth. That was a look Aglet knew, although it usually cropped up in berth, when Pharma had just said something sultry he didn’t really mean.

Aglet sat up. “What?” he said. “You okay?”

“Rung would never—” Pharma cut himself off, abruptly turning to look at the other side of the plaza with his mouth in a twist.

Aglet thought about just dropping it and moving on for a second, but if they couldn’t talk about Rung _ever_ , they were going to have a problem. Not least because Aglet saw him almost every day at work. “Rung never what?” Aglet said.

Pharma gave him a sideways glance. “Rung never got what I meant about the paint thing. He didn’t see why yellow and pink together should be a cardinal sin.”

Aglet snorted. “Rung’s been orange since the original Primes were running around. Of course he doesn’t get it.”

“I’m sure it was fashionable once,” Pharma said, and then his mouth twitched, “maybe ten million years ago.”

Aglet grinned and nudged Pharma’s shoulder, nodding towards a too-bright minibot who’d come skating by, “You think anybody told _him_? He looks like he hasn’t gotten a repaint since the war broke out.”

“Hmm.” Pharma smiled a glittering, close lipped smile. “Perhaps his orientation packet was missing the concept of wax and polish entirely.”

They eased back into conversation, picking out the best and the worst paint jobs in the square. After a few minutes, Pharma reached out to hold Aglet’s hand.

\---

(“Hey, Aglet,” said First Aid, leaning into Aglet’s office at the end of shift. “Me and Flatline and some of the porters are going to Maccadam’s tonight, wanna come?”

“Sorry, ‘Aid.” Aglet gathered a few datapads to tuck into his subspace. “Have fun without me.”

“Aw, come on,” said Flatline, looming over First Aid. “Come and live a little. Maybe you’ll pick up some cuddly Autobot this time.”

“I’m good,” said Aglet, sliding past them and triggering his door to lock. “I’m kinda over hitting on mechs in bars.”

Flatline’s visor glowed. “Oh,” he said. “ _Are_ you.”)

\---

Pharma ran his tongue over his lips again. They felt dry. 

“I can close the door,” said Aglet, for the third time.

“No,” said Pharma, quickly. “I want to see you.”

Aglet gave Pharma an assessing look. It was only somewhat undermined by the fact that he was cupping his own spike in one big hand.

“I mean it,” insisted Pharma. “You’re overloading because of me, because of cuddling with me. I want to see how much you want me.”

“Fine,” said Aglet. “But don’t try to offer me interfacing halfway through because you think I need it, all right?”

“Right,” said Pharma. He cupped his hand over his panel, like he always did when he sat outside the washracks and listened to Aglet get himself off. Only this time he was sitting just inside the doorway, one wing leaning against the wall. He could see Aglet’s fingers flexing around his spike.

Don’t offer Aglet anything that wouldn’t make Pharma feel good, in and of itself. That was the rule they’d agreed on, the second or third time they’d hooked up. Pharma had tripped over it a few times, but he thought he was getting the hang of it.

Aglet’s hand began to move on his spike, squeezing and pulling. “Oh,” he said, optics dimming. “Mm. Pharma.”

“What are you thinking about?” asked Pharma, his spark in his mouth. He didn’t know what he’d do if Aglet was fantasizing about fragging him; about Pharma on his knees in front of him, mouth open for that slim green spike. It would be good, wouldn’t it? He wanted Aglet to want him.

If he was a _good_ partner, a _proper_ partner, Aglet wouldn’t need to fantasize. Pharma would already be kneeling in front of him, happy to be used—

“You,” gasped Aglet. “Thinking about you.”

Pharma’s hand squeezed over his panel, tight enough to nearly dent the metal. “Thinking about me doing what?”

“Lying in my berth,” said Aglet.

The image in Pharma’s processor shifted and melted into a familiar half-memory. Lying in a berth, legs spread, waiting—

“Hugging you,” said Aglet. “Kissing your throat. Watching you fall asleep in my arms. You’re so sweet to me, so sexy, love it when you’re, you’re relaxed and it’s like you _trust_ me, oh frag—”

Several of Pharma’s operations froze in place, leaving him to watch blindly as Aglet’s hand sped over his spike.

“Babe?” said Aglet, his voice trending toward a whine as he squeezed hard on the base of his spike. “You okay?”

“Yes,” breathed Pharma. “Yes.”

\---

(“You know,” said Flatline, over lunch. “If you’re dating someone, you have to tell us. No secrets among medics.”

“That’s not a rule,” said Aglet.

“It’s definitely a rule.” Flatline nudged Ratchet, who was technically ‘taking a break’ and ‘socializing,’ but who was actually reading patient files and forgetting to drink his energon. “Hey, boss. Tell Aglet he’s not allowed to have a secret lover.”

“He can have whatever kind of fragging lover he wants,” said Ratchet, scrolling through his datapad. “As long as it’s not Pharma.”

Aglet couldn’t quite catch his code in time to stop his biolights from flushing. Flatline looked him dead in the optic and smirked.

“I don’t want to deal with any more arson incidents,” continued Ratchet, oblivious. “Let alone the _conversations_.”

“At least Pharma’s hot as slag when he wants to be,” purred Flatline.

“I’m not dating anyone,” said Aglet, too loud.

Ratchet shrugged, and Flatline chuckled. But it was true, wasn’t it? Whatever he and Pharma were doing, it wasn’t dating.)

\---

The irony of it was that Pharma had been having a good day.

He’d done a few interesting surgeries, chatted with Knockout over lunch, sent Aglet a few snaps of the way his polish shone in the afternoon light. Obviously he’d _remembered_ that it was the anniversary of his fourth breakup with Ratchet, but the information hadn’t seemed particularly important. Not until he’d tried to go into a candied energon shop and found Rung already there.

Rung had his back to the door. Pharma stopped there, in the way, his hand frozen on the door handle. Eventually someone tried to shove past him, and Rung looked around at the noise and—

His optics—

It wasn’t advised to transform in the middle of the street, but Pharma had been sparked a medical transport. He knew how to take off in crowded conditions.

His apartment was quiet, dark, and empty. Pharma sat on the couch alone, his fans spinning hard in an attempt to cool his racing engine. It was pitiful, the way seeing Rung affected him. They weren’t _together_. Pharma had burned that bridge, almost literally. He’d ruined things with Rung, he’d ruined things with Ratchet. He was poison to everything he touched. He didn’t have any friends, he only had his soulless job and his empty apartment and—

And Aglet.

Pharma felt his shoulders relax a little. He had Aglet. He had someone who enjoyed his company, who enjoyed looking at his frame, who’d take care of him. He just needed to focus on that. It didn’t matter that Ratchet and Rung hated him. He had Aglet.

There was an old binder on Pharma’s bookshelf, one he’d carried with him through most of the war. He wiped his face with the back of his hand and stood up on shaky legs to get it.

\---

(It’s not a memory—it’s a series of memories stitched together, a constellation of tedious parties full of important people, glittering lights and the door mech looking just a little surprised that Pharma was invited by name, not as a plus one.

Pharma would stand at the open bar, waiting for his and Ratchet’s drinks, and always, inevitably, a mech would come up.

“Aren’t you beautiful,” he’d say, leering a little at Pharma’s wings. “Are you here with someone?”

And if Pharma said: “Yes, my colleague Ratchet is—”

Then it wouldn’t stop, the mech would keep pestering and prodding until finally Ratchet got thirsty enough to wonder where Pharma was and came barreling back through the crowd. And even once he got there, there would be a scene, and they would leave early, and Pharma wouldn’t be able to recharge that night because he’d be thinking what was the _point_ of even trying to network if it made him so miserable?

But if Pharma said: “Yes, my conjunx is waiting for me.”

Well, then the mech would find an excuse and simply melt away. And Pharma would bring Ratchet his drink, and they would have a nice time, and Pharma might chat with a few senators and tell them all about his services, should they ever find themselves in need of a surgeon.

The magic of belonging to someone. Pharma had learned that lesson early.)

\---

“Pharma?” Aglet had let himself in with the code Pharma had given him, but the apartment was dark. That was odd—they had plans. Didn’t they have plans? “Pharma, babe, you here?”

There was a clatter. Aglet traced the sound to the living room, where he found Pharma sitting on the couch, clutching a sheaf of flimsies, glaring at the datapad he’d knocked onto the floor.

“Babe, why are you sitting in the dark looking at, uhh,” Aglet picked up the datapad. “Special event venues?”

“No reason,” said Pharma, quickly. It wasn’t any more believable than when he’d told Aglet that he ‘didn’t mind’ if Aglet wanted to interface.

“Okay.” Aglet set the datapad down on the low table in front of the couch. “Did you still want to get dinner tonight? Or do you want me to go and—”

Pharma lunged forward and caught Aglet’s wrist in a flurry of spilled papers. “Please don’t go. Can you hold me? I want you to hold me. You can—” He paused, clearly struggling to think of something he could offer Aglet that wouldn’t break their rule. “You can—”

Aglet sat down and wrapped Pharma in his arms. It took a good five minutes for Pharma to stop shivering, little electrical impulses making his servos jump. Aglet just stroked between his wings and glanced down at the mess. He could see a guest list, a seating chart, a little sketch of a jet with long delicate chains draped over its wings, helm and hips.

“Planning a reception?” he asked, when Pharma was more or less settled.

“Not a real one,” said Pharma, into Aglet’s collar. “It’s just—something to think about when I’m having a bad day.”

“I’m sorry you had a bad day,” said Aglet, and squeezed Pharma a little tighter. “Does it make you feel better?”

Pharma was silent for a long moment. “Ratchet always hated it,” he said at last.

“I’m asking how you feel, sweetspark,” said Aglet.

“I _would_ feel better,” said Pharma, almost defiantly. “I’d be a good secondary, I know I would, I’d make conversation at parties and I’d spread my legs when I had to and I’d _belong_ and I wouldn’t need to worry so much, we’d be sworn to each other and you’d never be able to get rid of me—”

“Hey, Pharma, slow down.” Aglet tried to catch Pharma’s optics. “You’ve lost me. You want to get conjunxed?”

Pharma’s wings dropped, and he buried his helm in Aglet’s collar again. “No, no, of course not, I’m sorry.”

“Pharma—”

“It’s too early to even talk about it, I’m being too demanding. I’m always too demanding, just ask—ask _anyone_ —”

“Have you fueled?” asked Aglet. “What’s your level?”

Pharma didn’t say anything.

“Snacks,” decided Aglet. “We need snacks.”

Ten minutes later, they were back on the couch with a platter of oil crisps, and Pharma was in the middle of explaining the frankly barbaric concept of primary and secondary conjunxes. Aglet was just about ready to start the revolution all over again.

“Mechs would just _propose_ to you?” he asked. “After seeing you at a party once or twice?”

“It was all aesthetics,” said Pharma. “That’s how you chose a secondary conjunx, you wanted someone who will look good in public. And I,” he paused to smile modestly, “look very good.”

“Okay, but,” Aglet tried to follow the logic, “wouldn’t I be secondary? If we got conjunxed?”

Pharma’s face froze.

“You’re a famous surgeon.” Aglet ticked it off on his fingers. “More prestigious than I am, in a more respected field, working at a high-end clinic. I’m a telecom unit—a glorified radio who talks to people to make them feel better.”

“No, you’re,” Pharma bit his lip. “I’m—I’m a natural secondary, everyone always said so.”

“You’ve got twenty thousand followers on OnlyVans,” insisted Aglet. “I just hold the camera for you. That’s as secondary as it gets.”

“That’s not,” said Pharma, “you’re—You’re important, you’re more important to me than anything.”

That knocked Aglet back for a moment. He looked down, trying to gain some distance, and his optics lit on the stack of flimsies that Pharma had gathered together while Aglet was getting their snack. The top sheet was a design for a reception invitation. _You are cordially invited to celebrate the union of Pharma of Rodion and Ratchet of Vaporex_. Only ‘Ratchet of Vaporex’ had been crossed out and ‘Aglet of ???’ written underneath.

Aglet off-lined his optics. What was he _doing_ here? He was only a radio. He wasn’t qualified to handle this.

“Aglet?” said Pharma, tentatively. “Are you all right?”

“We’re not getting conjunxed,” said Aglet. “It’s too early. This is just how you cope.”

“Yes,” said Pharma, with only a hint of disappointment. “Yes, of course.”

Aglet onlined his optics again. “I don’t think it’s a _good_ way to cope, babe. It seems like it’s just making you feel small and miserable. Why don’t we do something fun?”

Pharma looked lost. “Fun?”

“Yeah,” said Aglet. “Let’s take some pictures.”

\---

(Aglet’s not quite sure when he first heard of conjuxing. He’d heard a lot of things, over the years, and a lot of them he hadn’t understood—especially when he was fresh-forged. It was hard to learn about the world when you were locked in alt mode, rarely leaving the communications center in Tesarus. He was barely one step above disposable, no one _explained_ things to him.

But he remembers one time in particular.

It was the tone that had got him, more than anything. Two mechs whispering across their comm lines, their voices humming with affection. Aglet had been fascinated, the rest of the comm traffic relegated to his background processes as he listened to the mechs talk. They didn’t talk about anything important, but they stayed on the line a long time. Like they each just wanted to hear the other’s voice.

Later, Aglet’s supervisor told him to mark those kinds of conversations as ‘seditious.’ Working mechs weren’t supposed to have time to form conjugations. It was disrupting the natural rhythm of their functions.

Aglet didn’t disobey orders often, back then. But he never obeyed that one.)

\---

After a late night shopping trip to the hardware depot, a call-around to several of Turmoil’s exes, and some creative use of surplus fabric from the off-world trade emporium, they had a full costume and a bit of flare for the shoot as well.

Pharma stood in front of the full length mirror in his berthroom, admiring himself. Aglet didn’t blame him. Pharma was always gorgeous, but tonight he was on a whole other level. The long train of the skirt they’d pulled together had all the elegance of a contrail, with a scalloped little front piece that just barely covered the outline of Pharma’s modesty panel. Chains, of course, encircling the hips and affixing in elegant loops to the wings; every time Pharma shifted to get a new angle on himself, the chains clinked around him.

They’d painted a racy double stripe around the tops of Pharma’s thighs, but the facepaint was the thing that kept catching Aglet’s attention. He wasn’t sure how Pharma had done it, but there was something to the sharpness, some secret angle, that made it seem somehow both risque and innocent.

“What do you think?” Pharma said, stretching and twisting to show off his best features. “Do we need less chain? More?”

“I think you look beautiful,” Aglet said, honestly. 

The magnetized jewelry Soundwave’s prop department had lent them glittered up and down Pharma’s chassis, the effect well worth the amount of wheeling and dealing Aglet had done to get Frenzy to part with them for a night. Gold encrusted, spotted with red and blue glass that spangled the walls in specs of light, Pharma looked like a trophy from an ancient war hoard. 

Very carefully—the intricacy of his chain made it difficult to do anything without help—Pharma preened. He spun, letting the train flare out behind him, and then laid himself out on the berth among all the pillows and exotic rugs they’d gathered to make a nest. His hands smoothed down over the fabric, and there was an unmistakable click as they passed over the scalloped front of the skirt and down to his thighs. Aglet swallowed. He was trying to stay focused, but he wasn’t made of stone.

Pharma’s hands lifted, and then settled on the berth at either side of his helm. “I want to start here,” he said. “You can get some pictures from the edge of the berth, and then you can climb up on top of me and get some from right above, like you’re about to ravish me.”

“Yeah?” Aglet said, struggling to keep his processor on task and _not_ imagining what laid just under that little skirt.

“Yes,” Pharma said, and let one of his knees fall open, displaying his damp valve and just barely recessed spike. Aglet snapped the first photo on instinct.

It was intoxicating, seeing the way Pharma opened up under Aglet’s gaze. He looked somehow both soft and untouchable, nothing like the miserable heap of a few hours before. Was it wrong that Aglet enjoyed that? It just felt so good to know that he was helping, that _he_ could make Pharma smile so easily with just a costume and a camera.

It was probably a moderately unhealthy level of codependence. Aglet put his hand on Pharma’s waist, admiring the way his long fingers wrapped around Pharma’s side. Holding him in place, safe and secure.

He took a picture of that too.

By the time Aglet had clambered on top of Pharma, Pharma was actually panting a little. His spike was fully pressurized, and his hands were shaking where he held his own thighs to spread them.

“You,” said Pharma, sounding dazed and dizzy, “you could frag me, if you wanted. I wouldn’t mind, if it was like this. My subscribers would love it.”

Aglet’s spike tried to pressurize against his panel. He gritted his teeth. “ _You_ would love it?” he asked, when he had it mostly under control. “Or you wouldn’t mind?”

Pharma’s jaw worked.

“Just tell me what you want,” said Aglet. “That’s all I ever need to know. No games, just what you want.”

“I don’t _know_!” snapped Pharma. The haziness was gone from his optics, and he abruptly sounded bitter, frustrated, on the edge of tears. “I want _something_ , I want you to want _me_ , but I don’t, I don’t—”

“Shh, babe, shh.” Aglet swiped a little fluid away from Pharma’s cheek. “Let’s make it simple. You want my array open or closed?”

“Open,” sniffled Pharma.

“Okay, you want my spike out?”

“Yes.” Pharma’s chains jingled a little as he ran his knuckles along Aglet’s thigh. “I like your spike.”

“Aw, thanks.” Aglet’s spike tried to pressurize again, but he firmly dismissed the notification. Not yet. “You want to be penetrated? Or penetrate me?”

There was a long pause. Pharma’s jaw worked again.

“Okay, let’s call that a no,” said Aglet. “What about grinding?”

“Maybe,” said Pharma.

“Maybe?”

“Tell me about it,” said Pharma, his optics flickering between Aglet’s panel and his face. “Tell me what you’d do.”

“Well, I’ve got a beautiful new conjunx to pamper and ruin,” said Aglet. “I want him to have the best night of his life. No pressure, no discomfort, he just has to lie there and let me take care of him. So I just lay my spike between his open thighs, right over his array. And then I take his knees in my hands and I close them tight, really squeeze my spike between his legs. No chance of me slipping into his valve then, all I can do is grind on his array, my spike against his spike, my spike against his node. And then I hit record on my visual system, so everyone else can see just how much I want him…”

“Yes,” gasped Pharma, already tugging him into place. “Yes, yes, _ruin_ me.”

Aglet pressed a kiss to Pharma’s throat. “And pamper,” he murmured. “Don’t forget that.”

\---

(“Please,” said Pharma, not quite knowing what he was asking for, just knowing he needed _more_ , he needed to be _closer_ , he _needed_. “Please, please, I—” His processor threw out a phrase, an obvious, natural phrase. “Frag me, _please_.”

He regretted it as soon as he’d said it. His hands clapped over his mouth, and he looked up at Aglet, not sure how to explain that he didn’t—he did mean it, but he didn’t and—

“It’s okay,” said Aglet, holding Pharma’s legs closed, his spike gliding safely over Pharma’s array. “It’s okay, I know what you meant, I’ll take care of you.”

 _Oh_. Pharma melted, a little, his hands dropping to either side of his helm, his shoulders and spine relaxing, Aglet’s hands on his knees the only thing holding them up. Aglet made a strangled noise and the rhythm of his grind against Pharma’s array stuttered and sped.

Another ‘please’ bubbled past Pharma’s lips, but he didn’t let it worry him. Aglet knew what he needed. Pharma could trust him.)

\---

Later, when Aglet’s transfluid tanks were spent and Pharma’s node was visibly throbbing with unspent charge, he packaged the video and sent it to Pharma’s comm. Then he stared blankly at the conjunxing finery which Pharma was still wearing. There were a _lot_ of transfluid stains.

It had seemed sensible at the time. Viewers loved money shots, but Pharma didn’t like having it on his plating. The logical answer had presented itself.

“Frenzy’s going to kill me,” said Aglet. “And Soundwave. _And_ Crankcase. I promised him I’d get that tulle back in one piece, he said it was the only good thing he ever got out of Turmoil.”

“We’ll clean it,” said Pharma, which wasn’t very comforting when Aglet was watching his skirt and train slowly soak up sticky pink fluid. But Pharma’s hand was between his own thighs, not rubbing or stroking. Just cupping himself, gently, like he did sometimes when he felt safe.

Kissing him was as easy as breathing.

“Can we watch the video now?” asked Pharma, when their lips parted. “Or—No, sorry, you’ll be bored, I’ll—”

“Yeah,” said Aglet, and gathered Pharma into his arms, chains and stained tulle and all. “Yeah, let’s watch it now.”

\---

(“You know,” said Aglet, one day, when Pharma was complaining again about his inordinately complicated commute to Knockout’s clinic. “My place is only, what, a couple minutes’ flight from Knockout’s?”

“Yes, I do know,” said Pharma. “It’s wasted on you.”

“Yeah,” said Aglet. He paused for a moment, on the precipice again. But. It was only sensible. “You could move in with me.”

Pharma stared at him.

“Not like,” fumbled Aglet, “not in a dating way. It just makes sense. It’s convenient. Unless—I guess maybe you like your space? I have a spare berthroom, but it’s not the same as your own apartment—”

“I hate my apartment,” said Pharma, and that was that.)

\---

Aglet was the one who bought the tickets, because—he reasoned—Pharma had just bought them a new burner for the kitchen block, after the last one had shorted out. The grand reopening of the Tetrahex Opera House had been a long time in coming, and ever since the end of construction was announced Pharma had been going on and on about how much he missed the antebellum opera, about how Ratchet had never wanted to go with him, about how fun it would be if _someone_ could get tickets...

When Aglet saw the announcement that they were putting on Ponte’s _Trial of the Pyramids_ for their first big stage show, he’d turned on a dime and walked right into the ticket booth, without hesitation. He could take a hint or five.

(It wasn’t a special occasion. They didn’t have an anniversary or anything, they weren’t that kind of—whatever they were. It was just something nice to do, because Aglet liked Pharma and he especially liked the way Pharma’s optics lit up and the way he hugged Aglet when Aglet gave him the tickets.)

It was an open floor, no seats, except for the boxes up high for special guests and donors. Aglet let Pharma pull him through the crowd, down towards the front, while snack vendors passed them by with carts full of things that would rust your tanks in a pump-beat.

“We should get as close as we can,” Pharma said, “the sound quality is better up close, the speakers just flatten it. I can’t _believe_ Verve survived the war, I was certain he had been killed in the first wave of bombings—”

Aglet was so busy nodding along and scanning the crowd for someone selling the acid-pickled crystal he remembered hearing an ad for a lifetime ago that he completely failed to notice Pharma had not only stopped speaking but also moving. Aglet walked straight into his back.

“Whoa,” he said, grabbing Pharma’s shoulder with his free hand for balance. “What’s…”

Aglet turned his head, following Pharma’s gaze, and found himself staring at Rung, whose brows were as high up on his face as they could go, with a couple of drinks in his slack grip.

Aglet was blisteringly aware of the way Pharma’s hand was clutched in his own, like a red hot neon sign had appeared in the air between them with an arrow pointing down at the conjunction. In perfect mortified silence, the three of them stared at each other, until someone bumped hard into Rung’s back and he stumbled forward, hastily juggling his drinks.

“Er,” Rung said, as he straightened back up finally.

“His hands were cold!” Aglet yelped.

Rung looked from Aglet’s face down to his hand, and then back up.

Like a kettle hitting boil, Aglet started babbling. “He's a surgeon! I mean, he needs his hands, what if they froze and I don't like—I mean yes I know him but I don't _know_ him we were just standing next to each other, but I thought 'well I'm a medical professional’—”

The pressure of Pharma’s fingers stopped him from shoving his figurative leg any deeper into his mouth. Aglet paused, questioning, and looked over. Pharma seemed tense, but steady, not at all in the state of panicked near-flight he’d expected.

“Hi Rung,” Pharma said. 

“Hi Pharma,” Rung said. There was a visible shift in his throat as he swallowed against nothing.

“Aglet and I live together,” said Pharma.

“Oh,” said Rung, faintly.

“It’s,” Aglet hurried to explain, “it’s just that I had a spare room, and my apartment is closer to Knockout’s clinic anyway—”

“We’re dating,” Pharma said. His grip on Aglet’s hand had turned to a steel trap, but his voice was even.

“You’re,” Rung said. His gaze flashed back down, to their hands, and back up to their faces. “Ah. I see.”

“...For a while now,” Aglet admitted, since Pharma seemed to be ready to lay it all on the line anyway. It seemed silly to play semantics now, when Rung was watching.

For a moment, Rung’s expression was inscrutable, and then he gave a weak smile. “...Aglet, you never tell me _anything_ about your life.”

Aglet laughed nervously. “Learned it from the best.”

“Well I’m… surprised,” Rung said. “Obviously.” He looked at Pharma. “But I’ve only ever wanted you to be happy. If you’re happy, then—then this is good, isn’t it?”

Pharma nodded.

“Okay, then, that’s… that, then,” Rung said. He took a little sideways step, edging around them bit by bit. “Yes. Alright. Glad to see you. Really. I hope you enjoy the show, it’s been lovely…”

Aglet stood stock still until Rung had thoroughly departed their extremely strange little bubble in the midst of the crowd. “Holy hell,” he wheezed. “I could have gone my whole life without having that conversation. You okay, babe?”

Pharma squeezed him once, and then loosened his grip. “Yes,” he said. His helm was fixed forward, optics on the stage, wings back. “Yes. I’m okay.”

Aglet let himself sag forward at last. “Good. Great. The hospital is going to be _so_ awkward tomorrow. You know how medics gossip.”

“I _am_ okay,” Pharma said, more to himself than to Aglet. His wings ruffled, and then settled down again. 

“Did you wanna get closer?” Aglet asked. With only ten minutes to go before the curtain-rise, the crowd was beginning to solidify in front of them.

Pharma nodded, and then pulled at his hand. “Yes. There’s a spot down in the middle I think we can squeeze into.” 

There were a series of pained noises and muttered curses, and then Starscream came knocking his way through the press of bodies. Someone shoved him back, and he walloped them with his transparisteel wing in retaliation.

“You,” he said, catching sight of Aglet, “did you see Rung come by here?”

“Um,” Aglet said.

“Ugh, why do I bother,” Starscream said. He slapped a hand against his audio array. “Rung!” he said. “Rung, where are you? You’re supposed to be coming back with our drinks!”

He wrinkled his nose at something only he could apparently see, gaze switching to the middle distance.

“What do you mean, you _left_?” he squawked. “You went _home_? We just _got_ here, what are you—?”

It was then, with his gaze roving aimlessly over Pharma and Aglet, that Starscream froze in his tracks. His optics narrowed. His wings shot up. “Aglet,” he growled, “can you explain just exactly what I’m looking at here?”

“Um,” said Aglet, helplessly. “His hands were cold?”

\---

(Later, much later, in the middle of the night, Aglet said, with his spark in his throat: “Hey, I love you.”

“S’nice,” said Pharma, half-asleep and all the more beautiful for it. “Me too.”)

**Author's Note:**

> If you liked this fic, please let me know! You can also share it on [DW](https://neveralarch.dreamwidth.org/110302.html), [tumblr](https://neveralarch.tumblr.com/post/631260024360058880/snapshots-neveralarch-the-transformers-idw), or [twitter](https://twitter.com/neveralarch/status/1313579139669143553).


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